The only movie Joel Edgerton watches every year: “It’s a reminder that life is good”
Joel Edgerton had made many films in his home country that resonated with a global audience, but it was only nearly a decade after his Star Wars appearance that he began to attract the attention of legendary filmmakers like Baz Luhrmann, Ridley Scott, and Kathryn Bigelow, among others.
Audiences met the Australian actor for the first time in 2002 when he briefly played Owen Lars (eventual uncle to Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy) in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, and while he did a good job, few would have predicted just how remarkably his career would expand in the following 25 years.
After he managed to snag some awards buzz for his roles in the sports drama Warrior and the adaptation of The Great Gatsby, Edgerton also proved himself to be a talented writer and director in his own right, with his directorial debut, The Gift, being a contemporary psychological thriller with a Hitchcockian bent, featuring one of the creepiest performances of his career.
He also directed the powerful drama Boy Erased, which explored the issue of gay conversion therapy camps in religious communities, and after serving as a co-writer and producer on films like Jane Got A Gun, It Comes At Night, and The King, it became clear that Edgerton was just as important behind the camera as he was in front of it.
The best filmmakers tend to be those who are the biggest cinephiles, and the actor has certainly been passionate when talking about the films that have inspired him, admitting to The Ankler that he watches It’s A Wonderful Life every year, and that it serves as “a reminder that life is good”.
It’s not unusual to make viewing this feature a yearly experience, as many consider it to be a Christmas film that is important to see at least once every holiday season, but Edgerton’s praise for James Stewart’s performance suggests that he understands the film on a deeper level, as he credited “good karma” as being a major theme within the story.
It’s A Wonderful Life is the rare classic that hasn’t aged a day because of how relevant its themes are, and how they transcend any context of the era, and while Frank Capra’s message about the value that comes from being loved and doing good may seem simple, it resonated with audiences because of how difficult it can be to follow during darker times. As one of the primary Hollywood films to be released during World War II, It’s A Wonderful Life literally came out at a time when people needed it most.
Interestingly enough, Edgerton’s latest film, Train Dreams, which he starred in and produced, has a lot of similarities with It’s A Wonderful Life, set during the beginning of the 20th century, and starring the actor/director as a construction worker who falls in love, raises a family, and deals with mortality during the span of one lifetime.
In years to come, it’s easy to see how Train Dreams could be a classic that demands a similar number of rewatches as It’s A Wonderful Life.
